Tamagno, Wagner Antoino et al. (2021) International Worm Meeting "Protective and reparative effect of dragon fruit upon central nervous system toxicity induced by copper"

Tamagno, Wagner Antoino, Sutorillo, Nathalia Tafarel, Alves, Carla, dos Santos, Amanda, Kaizer, Rosilene Rodrigues, Barcellos, Leonardo Jose Gill, Santini, Wallace, Vanin, Ana Paula

[International Worm Meeting, 2021]

Copper is an essential metal and is important in general metabolism. However, in high concentrations, it becomes toxic to the organism. The metal-induced toxicity is linked to many neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, occurring in senile aging. To prevent neurodegenerative diseases, some studies are being developed to find ways of healthy aging. Natural compounds and diets based on fruits are increasing. Dragon fruit (Hylocereus undatus) is a tropical and Latin American fruit that is gaining more popularity due to its antioxidant properties. This fruit still has low popularity, since its planting and large-scale commercialization are recent. Here we evaluate the protective and reparative effect of different doses of dragon fruit's microencapsulated pulp extract on copper-induced toxicity. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans was used as a model, to research the effects of pitaya extract on the Cholinergic nervous system, behavior, lipidic peroxidation, and chaperon system. We observed that Cu severally increased directly the cholinesterase, chaperone, and peroxidation rates. When pitaya is applied, even to prevent or remediate, all those enzymes' rates are normalized again. Overall, the results have shown that the pulp fruit extract can be used on dietary supplementation to prevent and repair neural damage. The extract was able to regulates the chaperone system to reduce expression of heat shock protein (16.2) and reestablished the AChE levels avoiding lipidic peroxidation. Changes in the behavior, decreasing cell death biomarkers, and lipidic peroxidation caused by copper toxicity are showing, and, based on these results, we concluded that the pitaya fruit has an important role in gerontological issues.

Shane J Woods et al. (2005) International Worm Meeting "A genome-wide approach to examine genetic robustness through knock-down of duplicate genes using RNAi."

Anthony Rogers, Shane J Woods, David M Rivers, Julie Ahringer

[International Worm Meeting, 2005]

Redundant paralogs have been partially attributed to genetic robustness against null mutations (Gu et al., 2003). In an attempt to assess the genetic robustness of the C. elegans genome we have identified ~ 2000 putative duplicate gene pairs. We have optimized a double RNAi feeding method using our RNAi feeding library (Fraser et al., 2000; Kamath et al., 2003) and an RNAi-supersensitive worm strain to test candidate gene pairs for redundant functions. We will present the data from this screen, where we score embryonic lethality, sterility, and other directly observable phenotypes. This screen presents a resource for novel gene function complementing existing functional genomic screens. In addition, it will allow us to further understand how genomic redundancy is globally organised, as well as the process driving genetic backup. Previous studies of genome redundancy in C. elegans have relied on fitness data from single gene loss-of-function screens (Kamath et al., 2003; Conant & Wagner, 2004). This will be the first genome-wide screen in any higher order organism directly examining genetic robustness on a functional level.